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Embed YouTube Video in WordPress

These days it is no good to have static text blogs and you should think about how to embed YouTube video in WordPress. It is better to introduce more visual elements such as photos and video. Fortunately WordPress has some features which make adding video easy.

In this media driven world everyone is using video and if you don’t then you are missing out. True some people prefer to read text rather than watch a video. However, we live in a visual world and having video on your

website can certainly prove eye catching as well as be informative.

If you own the video you can host it on your hosting. Personally I find it easier to embed YouTube video in WordPress and pull in videos from YouTube. You can host your video there or use an existing one. Having a video on YouTube also means traffic can be directed from there to your website.

Don’t forget YouTube is a 24/7 platform so while you are asleep people can be watching a video on your website which is actually coming from YouTube.

Another advantage on using videos from YouTube is that you don’t need any special plugin or video player on your website. The process to embed YouTube video in WordPress is a straightforward affair. Essentially you grab some special code from YouTube for the particular video you want to embed on your website.

So how do we embed YouTube video in WordPress?

Embed YouTube Video in WordPress – Getting Started

Firstly you need to create a post in WordPress to hold the video. Head over to the WordPress dashboard and create a new post. This is the first task you will need to do if you want to know how to embed a YouTube video in WordPress blog posts. Next head over to YouTube and look for the actual video you want in order to embed YouTube video in WordPress.

Underneath the video you will see the word ‘Share’. Click this and a set of colourful buttons will appear with a web link in a box. Just above this you will see the words ‘ Share Embed Email’. Click on the word ‘Embed’.

Now you will see a line of strange looking characters. Don’t worry, all you need to do is put your mouse cursor on this line and copy it. The line may start with something like this

<iframe width=”

Make sure you copy the whole line as if you are missing one character the video may not play at all. It may be worth temporarily pasting the code into Notepad or something similar so that you are able to refer to it for this task.

Now head back to your new WordPress post and get ready to embed YouTube video in WordPress.

In the editor you will notice two tabs – one is labelled Visual and the other is labelled Text. Switch to the one called text. This is where you should paste in the video code. You will need to create some space in the text to add the video so take care you don’t accidentally remove anything.

If you are unfamiliar with how to embed YouTube video in WordPress then I would suggest putting any text currently in the editor area into Notepad and paste it back into the editor if you accidentally make a mistake. To be safe it would be better to just go to a blank area in the editor post and paste in the code line.

Embed YouTube Video in WordPress – Playing the Video

If you switch back to the visual area by clicking on the Visual tab you will see a big coloured square. This is the placeholder of your video. Don’t panic if the video is not showing and you cannot see it playing. You won’t see the video until you publish the post.

I hope this has given you an idea of how to embed YouTube video in WordPress.

WordPress Contact Form Plugin – Contact Form 7

When you build a website you should think about adding your contact details in there. This is especially useful if you are building a business related website or are selling some kind of product. You can add a WordPress contact form plugin to do the task.

Having a contact page also gives a professional image to your website. Imagine coming to a site and reading what it has to offer and finding no way of contacting the relevant people should you have an enquiry.

When building the contact page you can enter your email address and phone number.

Some may be cautious of adding their physical address details. Generally the contact form will allow the user to send you a message.

Once you receive the message you can then decide whether you want to act upon it.

There are many plugins for WordPress which essentially are like the apps on a smartphone. You don’t need to have any coding skills to create a contact form so relax and get ready to search for a suitable WordPress contact form plugin to handle the job.

WordPress Contact Form Plugin – Contact Form 7

The one I recommend is called ‘Contact Form 7’. Strange name I know, but trust me it does the job well. This is best WordPress contact form plugin you should be using on your websites.

So head over to the WordPress dashboard and click on the Plugins link on the left hand side.

Click on the ‘Add New’ button at the top.

At the search box get ready to search for a WordPress contact form plugin.

Type in the words ‘Contact Form’.

Click the ‘Search Plugins’ button and wait a few seconds.

In the search results on the left hand side you will see in bold text the name of the plugins WordPress has found. If the WordPress contact form plugin called ‘Contact Form 7’ is not showing on the page you are on then go to the bottom of the screen and on the right hand side click to move to the next page. Keep looking until you locate the WordPress contact form plugin. You want to look for the whole name rather than variations of it because there are other plugins that contain the same name.

When you find the WordPress contact form plugin you will notice it has some gold stars next to it. This is actually the rating given to it. The more stars the better of course. The next thing you need to do is to click the ‘Install Now’ link. Say ‘OK to the ‘Are you sure you want to install this plugin’ message that appears. Then click the ‘Activate Plugin’ link that appears.

So now the WordPress contact form plugin is installed it is time to configure it.

WordPress Contact Form Plugin – Configure Contact Form 7

If you now go back to the dashboard you will see an item on the left hand side called ‘Contact’. If you click on this you will be taken to another screen where you will see the plugin listed. You want to click on the ‘Edit’ button at this stage.

You will now see a little bit of code. Don’t panic you don’t need to touch this if you don’t want to. At the top of the page though it will ask you to copy a line to your page or widget. Copy that line because you will need it in a moment.

Use and existing page or create a new one for your contact form. Type in a title for the page and in the writing area you need to paste the line of code you copied. . Now you just need to publish the page and test it out.

That’s just about it for installing the WordPress contact form plugin.

WordPress Blog Page – Don’t Confuse With Posts

When working with WordPress you will be mainly concentrating on writing posts, but it is also important to think about WordPress blog page design.

The main difference between posts and pages is that posts have categories and tags whereas pages do not. Also pages have templates whereas posts do not have these. Remember you won’t be adding too many pages to your site. A WordPress blog page will be static and will be there a long time. Pages look similar to posts though and you can do many of the same tasks as posts, such as add media (photos, videos) to your page.

A WordPress blog page generally won’t have comments. You really don’t want people commenting on your pages because these are normally done by spammers.

A WordPress post can be assigned to a page. There is no particular order in which to do things. You can write posts first and then go about creating a page later or vice versa. It is important to give your WordPress site a good structure. For one it makes your website easy on the eye and two it can help with search engine optimisation.

WordPress Blog Page – Creation

So how can you go about creating a WordPress blog page?

First you need to go into your dashboard. This of course is the WordPress control centre where you maintain your website. Click on ‘Page’ and then click ‘Add new’. This will bring up a brand new blank page for you to work with.

The most important elements for you to complete on this WordPress blog page are the title, the editor and then you need to go and publish the page you have created. In the page title you can include your keyword in the title itself. If you are not intending to optimise your page for the search engines then you don’t need to worry so much about the keyword being there.

As soon as you enter a title you will notice in the permalink section that a URL is automatically created for you. You can change this WordPress blog page URL if you are not happy with it by clicking on the small edit button next to it. Make your change and then click the small ‘OK’ button next to it. Generally though it is better to keep the URL keyword rich, separated by hyphens or dashes, as it can make a difference in the search engines.

When it comes to entering your content on your WordPress blog page you can click on the ‘Visual’ tab before entering content into the editor. Actually when writing posts, 99% of the time you will be using the visual tab because the other tab will contain more program like HTML code and it is not recommended you fiddle with that unless you are comfortable. You can write out the content in a notepad file or Word document and paste it into the editor or you can type directly into the editor.

WordPress Blog Page – Page Elements

By clicking the preview button you can preview your WordPress blog page before publishing it in order to get an idea of how it is currently looking. You can also change the status of the page. For example, it is probably in draft mode which means it is not going to be live at that moment.

You can password protect the page by changing the visibility option. The publish option will allow you to schedule when the WordPress blog page gets published. It does not need to be published as soon as you have finished it.

In the page attributes section you can select If the page has a parent page. Your current page then becomes a sub page of the parent page you selected.

If you are happy with everything then all you need to do is to click the ‘Publish’ button and your WordPress blog page will be live on the internet.

How to Install WordPress Theme – A better Experience

The standard WordPress theme is a little bland and it is definitely worth thinking about how to install WordPress theme designs that offer the user a better experience.

You’ve bought your domain and added it to your hosting. Now you are ready to install WordPress on the domain and get started creating your all singing all dancing new website. You download WordPress to your domain and take a look at your first effort in your browser. At first glance it does not look great. Why is this and what can you do to improve it?

The good news is that WordPress comes with many alternative themes for you to install and yes, many of them are completely free to use. You will soon find one to your liking and won’t be worrying any longer about how to install WordPress theme designs.

How to Install WordPress Theme – The Responsive Theme

One theme I have used in the past is free and is called ‘Responsive’. It is called ‘Responsive’ because it can be used in a number of environments.

The technology world is always evolving and the last few years have seen dramatic change. Now we don’t just use PC’s to look at websites. We now have tablets, smartphones, TV’s etc. It is no longer feasible to use a WordPress theme that will just work on a PC.

When thinking about how to install WordPress theme designs consider a theme that can be viewed on a number of devices. If the theme is designed solely for the PC then it won’t look good on a phone or tablet if it has not been optimised for them.

It is important your site looks presentable. Obviously if your site is a blog related site then the look is perhaps not so important for say a site that is business orientated. That said, for any type of site it is worth understanding how to install WordPress theme designs in case you have a change of heart and want a new look to the site.

Don’t worry if you feel you won’t be able to revert back to the theme you had before. You can, and it is very easy. Essentially all you do is install the old theme again and it overwrites the existing one, it only takes a couple of clicks of the mouse. Don’t fret too much over how to install WordPress theme designs, it really is not difficult once you get the hang of it.

Personally I like my websites to have a clean look and I tend to plum for a white background when I look at how to install WordPress theme designs. Not everyone will like this look and will opt for something more suitable to their taste.

How to Install WordPress Theme – The Install Process

If you want to install WordPress theme manually then do the following. When in the WordPress dashboard do a search for themes. You will find a variety of good ones to choose from. Something will suit your needs. Once you find a theme you like then click the install button next to it. Once it is installed you will see a link to activate that theme. Click that and you will have a new theme installed. Take a look at it in the browser to see if it meets your needs.

You can also install third party themes and they are normally in a zip file format. You need to upload these to your WordPress area on your hosting. Upload the ZIP file containing your theme to the /wp-content/themes directory. Then go into your WordPress dashboard and from the Appearance menu, select Themes. In the Available Themes section. Under your Premium WordPress Theme, click Activate.

Never again should you worry over how to install WordPress theme designs.